


Past and Future Tense

by TinCanTelephone



Series: From Tumblr, With <3 [35]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Deep Conversations, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Quarter-life crises, and the past, oh the passage of time, worrying about the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-08 03:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20828834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/TinCanTelephone
Summary: As Jyn feels like she's being thrown into the future and Han's past is thrust back in his face, they help each other figure out how to stay themselves





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mariganath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariganath/gifts).

> For @mariganath on tumblr: "We can't have a crisis, my schedule is already full."
> 
> Okay so I wrote this for a prompt meme a looooong time ago and thought, "This might need a sequel. So I won't cross-post it just yet."
> 
> CUT TO a whole friggin' year later I actually do it but now no one remembers it so now y'all get to experience chapter 1 again. 
> 
> So I guess what I'm saying is, "you're welcome" XD

_Nar Shaddaa, 6 ABY_

“If you stop to shop one more time, I’m taking off without you,” Jyn says into her comm, heels up on the Falcon’s dash because she knows Han hates that. 

Han snorts. “Like she’d allow you to fly her.”

“Really, Solo? _She_?” 

“Hey, I know the heart of my ship. And so would you if you were worthy to fly her.”

“I appreciate your faith– Oh come on, not another clothing store. Don’t you have enough vests?”

“Quit stalking me, Erso.” Han glares at the security cam he knows she’s tapped into and goes back to picking through the sale rack. 

Jyn shrugs and zooms in on a zit on Solo’s temple on the datapad propped on her knees. “I’m on a timeline here, and you’re easily distracted.”

“I’m _trying_ to act casual. You know, so the _thousand_ bounty hunters here don’t get suspicious.” He steps out of the camera’s range.

Jyn switches feeds. “Nice try.”

“Karking hell, are you tapped into every feed on the planet?”

“Security in this sector is a joke. Which is how I managed to finish my half of this _quickly_ and you’re somehow still 2 klicks from the hangar.”

Apparently finished, Han leaves the shop without buying anything and steps onto the narrow street. “Hey, you had it easier,” he mutters. “Hutts don’t move as fast.”

“And yet I still managed to frame one for murder in less time than it took you to steal three datachips.”

He huffs. “What’s the blazing hurry anyway? You’d better not be bleeding out in my cockpit.”

“Don’t be stupid, you know I have a flight to catch.”

He grits his teeth and she smiles. “It’s _my_ flight. _I’m_ taking you and Andor to Takodana.”

“At this point I think it’d be faster to get a public transport.”

“Public transport? Geez, are you that thirsty after 2 weeks you can’t wait another hour or two?”

“Just get here, Solo.”

He laughs. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Jyn watches him purposely slow down and tosses the datapad aside in frustration. Whatever. He can believe what he wants as long as he _gets a move on_. Then it’s _hours_ back to Chandrila to get Cassian and even more hours to Takodana. And she _has_ to see Cassian. As soon as she possibly can. 

She pulls her boots from the console with a grunt and is about to start pacing the cargo hold when she’s hit with a head rush and has to grip the doorway to stay on her feet. 

Swallowing back nausea, she digs up the Falcon’s beat-up medpack and rifles through it for some medication. 

Except– Fuck. How much of this is safe for her to take now? 

She closes her eyes. This is why she needs Cassian. He’ll know what to do. He always knows what to do.

She sits back on her heels and tries to take a deep breath. Stars, she wants to comm him _so badly_. So badly she feels like she’ll explode, but she has to wait– this has to be said in person.

Ideally, she’d wait until they’re on Takodana, alone together and cuddling in the cabin Maz found for them, but honestly she probably won’t be able to wait that long. 

She’s usually good about secrets, but she’s already so self-conscious this one’s making her jumpy, and she’s afraid if anyone looks at her too long they’ll just _know_. 

Her thighs start to cramp so she stands up, one hand on the wall in case the light-headedness returns. Shit, that’s going to get old quickly. 

The first time it happened, in the middle of the (late) crime lord Naz Samuul’s private nightclub, she thought she’d been poisoned. So she slipped into the back alley and pricked herself with the portable scanner Cassian insisted she take. 

The result has been plastered at the front of her mind ever since. 

Then nausea returns, so strong she actually stumbles back to the Falcon’s grimy ‘fresher to throw up, although nothing much comes out and soon she’s just spitting bile into the toilet and trying to breathe through rising panic. 

_Fuck_, she’s terrified. She can’t do this on her own. She needs to see Cassian.

Her heart rate has almost returned to normal when Han curses through her earpiece and she scrambles back to the cockpit.

By the time she’s got his general location (still half a klick from the ship) he’s ducking into an alley and out the range of any security cameras. 

“What the kriff are you doing, you _stoopa_!” she hisses. “I don’t have time for a crisis, my schedule is already very full!”

“Oh, kark you and your ‘schedule,’” he says between breaths. Whatever it is, he must be running from it. “Just– almost ran into an old friend.”

“A friend you’re running from.”

“Don’t tell me you have none of those.”

“Are you going to end up shooting your way out of this?”

“Have a little faith. You know that’s never my _first_ choice.” 

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Oh shove it, Erso.” 

He’s moving quickly– she can hear him panting– through back alleys she can’t get eyes on at first, but the tracker she has on him says he hasn’t changed his general course. After some creative scanning, she finds him about to slip back into the main thoroughfare. 

But as he’s about to step out, a hooded figure emerges from Jyn’s blindspot and blocks his path. From what Jyn can see, they’re not armed, but Han stops abruptly and takes a step back. 

“Qi–?”

The figure cuts him off. 

“Sorry– Xanathe.” 

Jyn has a good view of Han’s face, and zooms in. In six years knowing him, she’s never seen him this thrown off. There’s no trace of his usual bravado or confidence– he just looks suspicious and almost… scared?

“Solo, who is that?” Jyn says, standing up and feeling for her blaster. At this point, he’s not that far from the ship. She can reach him in thirty minutes if she leaves now, twenty if she runs. “Do you need back up? Han?”

The figure has shifted a bit and Jyn can see their hands– human and feminine, with nails painted dark red or black. Han still hasn’t answered and Jyn realizes it’s because the woman is speaking. 

“Han, are you in danger? What’s going on?”

The woman finishes and Han appears to relax, dropping his shoulders slightly and moving his hand from his holster. 

“I thought you were dead,” he says.

Jyn relaxes as well. So it’s one of _those_ friends. “We don’t have time for you to catch up,” she says. “Exchange communication codes and let’s go.”

She’s ignored as the woman speaks again. 

Han shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe because you ran away to follow the head of a murderous crime syndicate. Or something.” He’s still leaning slightly away from her, his tone resentful. 

The woman pushes back her hood, and Jyn can see her face. She’s around Han’s age and Jyn thinks she might have once been classically beautiful, with features almost as fine as Leia’s, but now there’s a ragged scar running up the left side of her neck to her temple. 

From what Jyn can tell, it’s at least a few years old, but it was either very deep or not treated with bacta because it’s so pronounced the corner of one eye is pulled down. 

But she doesn’t look vulnerable. Jyn can tell from the way the woman carries herself, and the cloak she wears Jyn knows is designed to conceal multiple weapons. She looks like someone to be feared, and the scar is proof of what she can survive.

Han’s eyes widen before he gets his expression under control. Then, to Jyn’s dismay, he seems to remember she can hear him and turns off his comm before he speaks again. 

The conversation is short, although from the way each of them seem to weigh their statements there’s a lot of subtext. Jyn wonders how deep their history runs. 

Towards the end, Han starts shaking his head and the woman seems to grow agitated. Jyn tenses– maybe Han needs backup after all– but the woman never approaches him, or makes a move for any of her weapons. 

Han seems to feel the same thing, because he takes his eyes off her to turn towards the main road and begins to move past her. He also turns his comm back on. “I have a family,” he says. “I’ve done my share of crusading.”

For a moment, the woman looks oddly stricken by this, but recovers quickly. She pulls her hood back up and lets Han go.

As Han walks in the direction of the hangar, Jyn lingers on the woman, who watches him for nearly a minute before slipping into the crowd, moving in the opposite direction. 

Jyn doesn’t speak when Han walks up the gangplank, and they perform the pre-flight checks in silence. His expression is grim, and when he speaks into the comm before take-off his voice is stern. 

She doesn’t mention it. 

When they’re in hyperspace, he undoes his restraints and stands almost violently, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.

Jyn nods and concentrates on her datapad, although its display is blank. The back of her mind is still screaming about her own crisis, but for some reason this feels much different, and somehow more serious. “Okay.”

He paces the length of the Falcon and back. “I never expected to see her again.”

Jyn nods, and he walks up and down again. She wishes he would stop. It’s making her nauseous. 

“I really thought she was dead,” he said. “I almost… _wished_ for it.”

She knows the feeling, and her stomach rolls again. 

He finally sits down, presses his hands to his knees and stares at the floor. “There was a time when I thought… When I was younger, I thought some things would never change– that I would always be _that person_.” He looks up at her. “Erso, do you think you’re a completely different person than you were fifteen years ago?”

Oh Gods, she doesn’t know. She’s so nauseous now it’s hard to think. All she knows as she drops the datapad and walks quickly to the ‘fresher in the back is that fifteen years from now, her life is sure to be unrecognizable, to say nothing of her as a person. 

Han’s watching her with no small amount of worry when she emerges, wiping her mouth on her vest. 

She’s not sure what she expects him to say, but it’s definitely not, “Fuck, Jyn. Are you _pregnant_?”

She freezes. “_No_.” It’s a terrible lie, written all over her face and she knows it.

“Bantha-shit! That’s exactly what Leia looked like when she was pregnant with Ben. Holy karking hells, have you told Andor?”

Her mouth snaps shut and she’s suddenly _furious_. This is not how it’s supposed to go– _Han Solo_ is _not_ supposed to know she’s pregnant before Cassian. It isn’t _right_. “Not yet.”

“I get it, wait to see him. Good call.” He checks the chrono. “Just a few hours and we’ll be on Chandrila.” 

“Great.” Jyn stomps past him and sits heavily in the copilot’s seat, staring resolutely into hyperspace. 

Han watches for a second, then sighs and comes up behind her. “Okay, I’m sorry I know before him, all right? Although it’s not my fault I have a father’s intuition now.”

She rolls her eyes. 

He sits next to her. “You know he’ll be excited, right? Like, over the moon. I might even be able to tell by looking at his face.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious. I mean, his _right eyebrow_ might twitch, and then I’ll know he’s as happy as he was at your wedding.”

“All right, shut up.” She relents, uncrossing her arms and smacking his shoulder.

He grins. “I’m happy for you, Erso. I bet you never even saw this coming, right?”

She snorts. “Of course not.” She turns and catches his eye. “We’ve all changed a lot.”

He sobers and looks away, staring unfocused out the viewport, at space rushing by around them. “Kinda funny how that happens.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Kinda funny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original Tumblr Post](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/178035237270/prompt-we-cant-have-a-crisis-my-schedule-is)


	2. Chapter 2

They spend the rest of the flight in near silence, only saying what they need to navigate the two hyperlane changes and the final descent onto Chandrila. Han seems wrapped up in his own thoughts, while Jyn's too nervous to press him. Besides, she’s got her own stuff to worry about. By the time they land in Hanna City, she's twisting her kyber crystal obsessively and trying to slow her heart rate. 

Even though Han already knows, she feels like telling Cassian will make it all _real_ and Gods does that terrify her. She has to take several deep breaths before she feels prepared to follow Han off the Falcon, where Leia, Ben, and Cassian are waiting. 

Han takes Ben from Leia's arms and wraps them both in an embrace so tight Leia's eyes bug out.

Jyn's heart constricts– is this what having a family will be like?She’s still glancing at the three of them when she greets Cassian, leaning up to kiss him before he pulls her into an embrace. 

"Did everything go well?" he says, although he keeps looking at Han as well, who still hasn't let go of Leia's shoulders. 

"We're okay," she says. "Han… ran into an old friend."

"I see." He doesn't ask any more questions, for which Jyn is very grateful.

"We can still leave on time, though," she says. 

"Good." He smiles. "I'm excited."

"Me, too." _Tell him, you have to tell him_. Jyn looks over at Han again, who’s still distracted, but tries to shuffle herself and Cassian a bit farther away. She starts to get nervous again, her palms sweating in Cassian's hands. 

Of course he notices. "Jyn, what is it?"

Her heart is pulsing in her ears so loud she can barely hear herself. “I’m pregnant.” 

There’s one horrible second where he doesn’t react, then his face breaks into a wide smile, eyes shining. “Really?”

She nods, and he throws his arms around her, holding her tight and leaning back so her feet come off the ground. 

“Oh my… Jyn, I’m so… are you happy?” 

“Yes.” It’s hard not to be, when he’s smiling like that and this close to spinning her around in his arms, even though most of her is still terrified. 

He pulls her close again and kisses her hard, right in the middle of the hangar. Jyn grips his shoulders and leans into it, exhilarated by the rare public display of affection. 

“I love you,” he murmurs in between kisses. “I love you so much.”

“Hey, keep it in your pants, Andor.” 

Jyn looks over her shoulder to see Han smirking as he and Leia and Ben walk back to the ship. He even has the audacity to wink at her.

She follows them as Cassian gathers his things, and she just overhears Leia say, “So, did anything exciting happen on this one?”

Han shrugs, hefting a sleepy Ben higher on his shoulder. “Nope. Nothing at all.”

* * *

_Takodana, Four Months Later_

It’s raining outside, pattering gently on the leaves of the forest canopy and on the roof of their small house. It’s peaceful– soothing, even. And it’s good for the small garden Cassian’s started up out back. He’s put a lot of time and effort into it since they’ve been here. Jyn tried to help at the start, but once she started pulling vegetables out with the weeds she let him take care of it alone. It’s become one of his pet projects, like the rundown tool shed, and the spare bedroom next to theirs. 

Somehow, they’ve stayed on Takodana long after the planned ‘honeymoon’ was supposed to end. At first they just extended it by a few days, then it was weeks, then they began looking with dread at their little shuttle parked by the lake, then eyeing the second bedroom like it could be rearranged for a crib. 

The little house belonged to Maz, the owner of a tap house a couple klicks away, and she was more than willing to let them stay in exchange for fixing it up a bit. 

Which Jyn was more than happy to do. She and Cassian began the more physical repairs together, before he convinced her to stop and she focused on updating the tech while he finished the backyard and furniture for the baby’s room. 

She worried at first that it wouldn’t be enough, that he would miss the challenge and the stimulation of the Cause, and he’d start wishing for Chandrila again, but so far he hasn’t. Maybe it’s the physicalness of the labor, or the peace he seems to find in the forest that surrounds them, but he seems happy. And he sleeps well every night, tired out and satisfied. 

He’s deep asleep now, next to her in bed. Doesn’t even stir at the low rumble of thunder in the distance. A few weeks ago, she might’ve done the same, but since her belly began to get cumbersome she hasn’t slept as well. It’s why she’s awake right now, and why she hears the faint tapping at their door through the rain. 

It’s a sign of how far removed they are from their previous life that she feels more curiosity than fear, and doesn’t think too hard before rolling awkwardly out of bed and walking to the door. 

The tapping starts again, more insistent as she nears the entrance.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she says, hopefully loud enough for them to hear but not loud enough to wake Cassian. She thinks it’s probably Maz, coming to ask for help with something or other. 

She opens the door, yawning, then steps back before the looming figure of Han, black poncho drenched from the rain and hair flat against his forehead. His face is pale in the dim light of her living room and there are deep circles under his eyes. 

“Jyn–” He doesn’t finish before she opens her arms and he nearly falls into them. The rainwater instantly soaks her nightshirt but she holds him tighter. She can’t see his face, but his chest shakes as if he’s been crying. 

She doesn’t say a word as she leads him inside, depositing on the sofa and lighting their small stove. After stepping back into the bedroom for a dry shirt (the other of two that still fit her), she finds him still sitting there, poncho dripping onto the floor and the couch cushions. 

“You’re never going to warm up like that,” she says. “And if you plan on spending the night, that’s where you’ll be sleeping.” 

He sighs and pulls the black cloth over his head, shaking it out and laying it on the floor in front of the stove. “She’s dead, Jyn.” 

“Who?” For a moment, she thinks he means Leia and her heart nearly stops. But then she remembers. “The woman from Nar Shaddaa.”

“You’re the only one I can tell,” he says without lifting his head. “You’re the only one who knows.”

Jyn takes a deep breath and accepts that neither of them are going to sleep any time soon. So she lumbers over to the couch and sits carefully next to him. “What was her name?”

“Qi’ra.” His voice chokes up again as he says her name and he digs his fingers into his eyes. 

“How did you know her?” 

“From Corellia.”

Jyn sits back. She can count on one hand the number of times Han has mentioned Corellia to her. She doubts even Leia knows more than the barest of details. 

“We were… together.” 

Not terribly surprising, considering the way he acted around her on Nar Shaddaa, but Jyn has a feeling this woman is more than just an ex-girlfriend. 

“I left her there, when I escaped.” 

“And never saw her again until four months ago?” 

“No, I saw her again.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “But it’s a long story, and we were still young…” 

Jyn lets him trail off, doesn’t ask anymore questions. She recognizes the furrow in his brow as he gets lost in thought, the unsettling feeling that the past seems like someone else’s life entirely. 

“Ten years ago, where did you think you’d be by now?” Han says suddenly. He he asked something similar four months ago on the ship, right after it happened. She supposes it never left his mind.

“Dead,” she can say without much doubt. Ten years ago, she was never sure she’d see the end of a month. 

“I was running from so many sentients I thought at every turn, ‘This could be it. This time they’ve finally got me.’” 

“I was running cons for anyone who would pay.” Almost unconsciously, she puts her hand on her belly again, as the baby offers a few lazy kicks to her ribs. Would she tell her child what her life was like back then? Would she ever want them to know? 

Han watches her for a second, then directs a quiet chuckle into his lap. “Karking hells, Erso,” he says. “How did we end up here?” 

“Fuck if I know.” The baby kicks again, as if to say, _Don’t curse, Mama!_ And for a second she feels almost out of her body as Han’s words sink in. When she was nineteen, she was fighting every day to survive, expecting to die young. She would’ve hit anyone who even suggested in ten years she’d be happily married and expecting a baby, retired on a quiet Mid-Rim planet planting carrots with her husband. 

“How did I, of all people, get a happy ending?” Han says softly. “How do I deserve this?”

“We probably don’t.” A slightly hysterical laugh escapes her lungs, and not for the first time Jyn thinks that although her child is so, so lucky to have Cassian as their father, they are equally unlucky to have her as their mother. 

“A dirty trick of the Force,” Han says. 

“Undoubtedly.” 

They lapse into silence again, which is just as well because the baby shifts and Jyn has to go use the ‘fresher. 

When she comes back, Han’s still staring at the flames, lips pressed together in a bitter line. “You know, there hasn’t been a thing I’ve loved that I haven’t fucked up.” 

An empty platitude on her lips, Jyn registers the word _love_ and remembers what brought him here. “Did you love Qi’ra?”

“Yes,” he says, so softly she can barely hear him. “ But that night on Nar Shaadda, I felt nothing.” 

“You thought she was dead for a long time.” She returns to the sofa and sits next to him. 

“But even seeing her face again… she wanted me to run away with her, Jyn,” he says. “Go off and join her ‘righteous fight.’ But I couldn’t do it.”

Jyn huffs. “I’m sure Leia appreciates the sacrifice.” 

“I didn’t tell Leia,” Han says, although she already knows that. “I don’t want her to think… that I love her less, or that she’s my second choice or something.”

“What does that have to do with it?” she says crossly. “People are allowed to fall in love multiple times.”

Han barks a humorless laugh. “How would you feel if you learned Cassian loved someone before you?”

Jyn shrugs as casually as she can manage, although the thought makes her chest constrict. “It doesn’t matter. He loves me now.” 

“Seriously?” he says. “You don’t care at all?” 

“I didn’t say that.” She shifts on the sofa, trying to shake the image of Cassian in his early twenties infatuated with some other nameless, faceless woman. Another devoted Rebellion soldier who broke his heart by dying selflessly for the Cause. Someone much more like himself than she was, who could know him so much better–

She shakes her head. “_No_, I don’t care. Everyone’s got a past, but we have to leave it where it belongs. Otherwise we’ll never move forward.” 

“Yeah, sounds easy enough.” He rubs his face hard, palms digging into his eyes. “It’s just… how do you keep track of yourself? When everything changes so much?” 

“No idea.” Jyn sits back, exhausted and frustrated. As if she’d know any more than he does. “Just– accept that it happens to everyone, and maybe you wouldn’t recognize Leia if knew her ten years ago.”

He’s silent for a long while, then actually turns, regarding her with something almost like surprise. “When did you get so wise, Erso?” 

“Motherhood,” she says, holding her belly with exaggerated reverence. “It changes you.” 

He almost laughs, lips quirking up at the corners. 

“Actually though,” she says nervously. “I just realized like, yesterday I would never _not_ be biologically tied to another human being again, so… that was a terrifying thought.” 

He actually smiles this time, a gentle kind of smile that’s not familiar on his face, but she thinks looks good on him. “The fear doesn’t go away, you know.” 

“Great.”

“I thought it might go away when he was born, but it hasn’t.” 

She hopes at first he’ll offer some mildly comforting words, but instead he just falls silent again, staring hard into the stove. 

“Maybe that’s good,” she says. “It means you care.” 

“Maybe. I just… hope it’s enough.” He ducks his head, running fingers roughly through his hair. “Gods, Erso, sorry for keeping you up like this. Not like you haven’t got your own shit to worry about.”

“It’s fine. I probably wouldn’t be sleeping anyway.” But even as she says it, she has to cover a yawn and the lateness of the hour starts to dawn on her. 

He huffs a laugh. “Whatever you say.” He waves a hand towards the bedroom. “Go to bed. Tomorrow I’ll be out of your hair.” 

“Alright.” She stands carefully, hand on her belly again, even though the baby is quiet now. “Goodnight, Han.” 

“Goodnight.” He’s still watching her as she reaches the doorway, eyes moving from her belly to her face. “And Jyn, if it even means anything coming from me, you’re going to be a good mother.” 

She swallows, throat suddenly tight. Lips in a shaky smile, she finds the strength to mouth the words, _Thank you_, then turns quickly away so he can’t see the wetness in her eyes. In four months, she never realized how badly she needed to hear those words. 

As she lies down, she imagines her baby in her arms instead of in her stomach, its round face a perfect combination of her and Cassian. And even if it’s only for a moment, for the first time she doesn’t feel afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> as always I'm still on tumblr as [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/)!!


End file.
